Sakuya getting ganged up on had me in tears, just got completely bullied out of the match.

Youmu I know you are an airhead but please think about Akyuu's ability more!

Im an airhead and dont get it! Help!

She's remembering the exact movements of each tile as they were shuffled so she knows where all the face-down tiles are, I presume.

But that doesnt make sense... Abilities like Shou/Hina/Kaguya do not make the tiles more likely to be drawn by them, but they change the value of the face down tiles/how people play tiles, as seen by marisas failed attempts at cheating. Unless actually knowing the tiles changes that? I mean, Marisa certainly did not need perfect memory to know where her tiles where, since she arranged them as such.

One, I don't think you should conflate Kaguya's ability with the other two really. Kaguya's affect the whole table in a lot of subtler ways, causing a draw by any means possible, while the other two strictly affect the tiles they pick up.

As for how they do it, it's actually probably closer to Marisa. It seems like in this version of Mahjong, each player draws their tiles from a "wall", basically an individual deck. Hina's and Shou's abilities seem to be that they draw far more of their personal tiles into their hand and their wall when setting up the round. Marisa does the same, just by sleight of hand rather than an ability. I don't think anyone has the ability to actually change what a tile's value is - if they could, it'd be far more suitable for a character like Mamizou... but even Mamizou's abilities only deceive people on what the card actually says, rather than change what it actually is.

Akyuu is actually a great counter to this, for basically her memory skills. Like the person above said, she can remember the exact movements of tiles.

Shou's power draws in the Pin, (aka the coins). there are 36 Pin tiles, and a hand is 13 tiles big. So just by showing her hand, Shou's already given Akyuu a marker on about a third of her core gameplan. With even that much, as well as the ones in her own hands, Akyuu's probably aware of about half the Pin cards by round 2.

by extension, if she remembers the exact movements of tiles, she can infer information on even a small amount of them (as the various trios and quads that make up a Mahjong hand are fairly consistently pre-arranged by everyone, if she knows, for example, that Shou has arranged two of the same tile with another tile between them, she can be pretty confident that there's at least three of a kind there.)

Note exactly what she did in this round - she didn't go for a big win, she went for a seemingly riskier AND smaller one that none the less paid off. The reason isn't because she's dumb, it's probably because either she knew she couldn't get the better hand or that someone else would win first if she tried.

I'm reminded of a discworld story, where a game like poker is being played with an undercover witch. The one time the main scumbag on the table has what could be the best hand in the game, the witch folds early, sacrificing a grand total of... one dollar. Akyuu's doing something similar here - accepting smaller wins and losses to prevent other players from capitalising on their good hands.

She's basically the world's best card-counter, with an eye for the very long game. Like she said, not knocking her out in the first round was a big mistake, as now she has a lot of information on Shou.

Youmu I know you are an airhead but please think about Akyuu's ability more!

Im an airhead and dont get it! Help!

She's remembering the exact movements of each tile as they were shuffled so she knows where all the face-down tiles are, I presume.

But that doesnt make sense... Abilities like Shou/Hina/Kaguya do not make the tiles more likely to be drawn by them, but they change the value of the face down tiles/how people play tiles, as seen by marisas failed attempts at cheating. Unless actually knowing the tiles changes that? I mean, Marisa certainly did not need perfect memory to know where her tiles where, since she arranged them as such.

One, I don't think you should conflate Kaguya's ability with the other two really. Kaguya's affect the whole table in a lot of subtler ways, causing a draw by any means possible, while the other two strictly affect the tiles they pick up.

As for how they do it, it's actually probably closer to Marisa. It seems like in this version of Mahjong, each player draws their tiles from a "wall", basically an individual deck. Hina's and Shou's abilities seem to be that they draw far more of their personal tiles into their hand and their wall when setting up the round. Marisa does the same, just by sleight of hand rather than an ability. I don't think anyone has the ability to actually change what a tile's value is - if they could, it'd be far more suitable for a character like Mamizou... but even Mamizou's abilities only deceive people on what the card actually says, rather than change what it actually is.

Akyuu is actually a great counter to this, for basically her memory skills. Like the person above said, she can remember the exact movements of tiles.

Shou's power draws in the Pin, (aka the coins). there are 36 Pin tiles, and a hand is 13 tiles big. So just by showing her hand, Shou's already given Akyuu a marker on about a third of her core gameplan. With even that much, as well as the ones in her own hands, Akyuu's probably aware of about half the Pin cards by round 2.

by extension, if she remembers the exact movements of tiles, she can infer information on even a small amount of them (as the various trios and quads that make up a Mahjong hand are fairly consistently pre-arranged by everyone, if she knows, for example, that Shou has arranged two of the same tile with another tile between them, she can be pretty confident that there's at least three of a kind there.)

Note exactly what she did in this round - she didn't go for a big win, she went for a seemingly riskier AND smaller one that none the less paid off. The reason isn't because she's dumb, it's probably because either she knew she couldn't get the better hand or that someone else would win first if she tried.

I'm reminded of a discworld story, where a game like poker is being played with an undercover witch. The one time the main scumbag on the table has what could be the best hand in the game, the witch folds early, sacrificing a grand total of... one dollar. Akyuu's doing something similar here - accepting smaller wins and losses to prevent other players from capitalising on their good hands.

She's basically the world's best card-counter, with an eye for the very long game. Like she said, not knocking her out in the first round was a big mistake, as now she has a lot of information on Shou.

So their majhong just has different rules? Normally, you dont set up your own wall, thats actually really stupid, cos anyone could just mix up the tiles to their advantage, no ingenious tricks needed (just move desired tiles closer to you) Another thing I feel like is completely off the mark is how perfect memory works. Yeah, sure she can remember each tile movement, but only if she actually can see them. For instance, how many tiles do you think can one perceive reasonably? Unless she has a bird view and hawk eyes, she would only ever have information on a fractiom of tiles, and since they are hopefully indistinguishable by human (and yokai) eye she would always lose all information the moment the tiles get mixed.

Its like, perfect memory does not help you in this "where is the prize under the cup" (forgot its name) game, The problem in this game is not your memory (since you only ever need to remember one number), its the fact that you cant perceive what happens fast enough. Even if akyuu has perfect memory here, her playback would just be as unhelpful. Same with mixing tiles, just a million times more difficult.

So their majhong just has different rules? Normally, you dont set up your own wall, thats actually really stupid, cos anyone could just mix up the tiles to their advantage, no ingenious tricks needed (just move desired tiles closer to you) Another thing I feel like is completely off the mark is how perfect memory works. Yeah, sure she can remember each tile movement, but only if she actually can see them. For instance, how many tiles do you think can one perceive reasonably? Unless she has a bird view and hawk eyes, she would only ever have information on a fractiom of tiles, and since they are hopefully indistinguishable by human (and yokai) eye she would always lose all information the moment the tiles get mixed.

Its like, perfect memory does not help you in this "where is the prize under the cup" (forgot its name) game, The problem in this game is not your memory (since you only ever need to remember one number), its the fact that you cant perceive what happens fast enough. Even if akyuu has perfect memory here, her playback would just be as unhelpful. Same with mixing tiles, just a million times more difficult.

Well, you're one hundred percent right that being able to build your own wall is ripe for cheating... in fact, you're so right that that is what Marisa actually does at least twice (Chapter 15, page 12, and even more egregiously Chapter 17, page 21) in the one game she's played in. They even mention that she's been pulling the tiles she needs closer to her for two rounds in the second case. Which is, as you said, all someone would need to do to cheat.

With how many players have abilities that affect their draws, it's safe to say that they're affecting their wall either directly or indirectly. It might be that their abilities merely allow them to affect how the neutral stackers end up placing the tiles, but it's also possible they either build their own wall or each other's wall. That doesn't change that what we're actively seeing is multiple people can affect their wall directly, to some degree or other.

As for your issues with Akyuu's memory ability - or maybe her memory processing/perception ability - being that good, it's probably true that'd you'd need to be at least a super-genius to memorise all that information, or even keep track of a fast Shell Game. But considering that Akyuu literally scored the highest out of all players in Self League (Chapter 14, pg 04), by a fairly significant margin it's say to say that whatever form her ability (which the author points out is to 'not forget anything she sees') takes is good enough to absolutely dominate the league and may even be on par with the Senses' powers, including the Literally Mind-Reading Satori. It's quite possible that the author has decided that her memorisation comes with the memory processing power to process the whole board, whether that's a conscious buff, attributed to the more magical nature of her ability, or just because the author doesn't know how perfect memory works.

To extend that Senses comparison further, compared to Satori, who is one of the Senses, The ability I'm theorising for Akyuu is a slower bloomer but has higher "max power". Unlike Satori, who starts with the information of everyone's hands and strategies in full and never gets more or less than that, she starts with only the normal amount of information she herself has and slowly builds up to have ALL of the information.

It's not that your objections aren't logical for a real game of mahjong. I'd even go so far as to say they're common sense objections.

But you can't be held back by common sense in Gensokyo.

So their majhong just has different rules? Normally, you dont set up your own wall, thats actually really stupid, cos anyone could just mix up the tiles to their advantage, no ingenious tricks needed (just move desired tiles closer to you) Another thing I feel like is completely off the mark is how perfect memory works. Yeah, sure she can remember each tile movement, but only if she actually can see them. For instance, how many tiles do you think can one perceive reasonably? Unless she has a bird view and hawk eyes, she would only ever have information on a fractiom of tiles, and since they are hopefully indistinguishable by human (and yokai) eye she would always lose all information the moment the tiles get mixed.

Its like, perfect memory does not help you in this "where is the prize under the cup" (forgot its name) game, The problem in this game is not your memory (since you only ever need to remember one number), its the fact that you cant perceive what happens fast enough. Even if akyuu has perfect memory here, her playback would just be as unhelpful. Same with mixing tiles, just a million times more difficult.

Well, you're one hundred percent right that being able to build your own wall is ripe for cheating... in fact, you're so right that that is what Marisa actually does at least twice (Chapter 15, page 12, and even more egregiously Chapter 17, page 21) in the one game she's played in. They even mention that she's been pulling the tiles she needs closer to her for two rounds in the second case. Which is, as you said, all someone would need to do to cheat.

With how many players have abilities that affect their draws, it's safe to say that they're affecting their wall either directly or indirectly. It might be that their abilities merely allow them to affect how the neutral stackers end up placing the tiles, but it's also possible they either build their own wall or each other's wall. That doesn't change that what we're actively seeing is multiple people can affect their wall directly, to some degree or other.

As for your issues with Akyuu's memory ability - or maybe her memory processing/perception ability - being that good, it's probably true that'd you'd need to be at least a super-genius to memorise all that information, or even keep track of a fast Shell Game. But considering that Akyuu literally scored the highest out of all players in Self League (Chapter 14, pg 04), by a fairly significant margin it's say to say that whatever form her ability (which the author points out is to 'not forget anything she sees') takes is good enough to absolutely dominate the league and may even be on par with the Senses' powers, including the Literally Mind-Reading Satori. It's quite possible that the author has decided that her memorisation comes with the memory processing power to process the whole board, whether that's a conscious buff, attributed to the more magical nature of her ability, or just because the author doesn't know how perfect memory works.

To extend that Senses comparison further, compared to Satori, who is one of the Senses, The ability I'm theorising for Akyuu is a slower bloomer but has higher "max power". Unlike Satori, who starts with the information of everyone's hands and strategies in full and never gets more or less than that, she starts with only the normal amount of information she herself has and slowly builds up to have ALL of the information.

It's not that your objections aren't logical for a real game of mahjong. I'd even go so far as to say they're common sense objections.

But you can't be held back by common sense in Gensokyo.

Well, you concluded your argument in such a good way, I can hardly deny anything! But the rest was good as well of course. True, no matter what I say about Akyuu, the fact that she did come out on top makes her ability good, even if the realization of 'perfect memory' is up to the author to elaborate in the next chapters.

Speaking of Satori, she would be the best counter for Akyuu though. All her hard earned information can be directly taken from her.
Its fascinating how Youmu (and some other characters like Yuyuko) are not part of the large group of tile manipulator or information manipulator (gatherer). If you think back on how Youmu won, it was mostly what you'd consider a fluke. Her hardest oppenent being arguably Sanae was outdone by teamwork as far as I remember. Keine wrecked her hard, Satori won't lose to her twice. The only 'legitimate' win was against the 'strongest trio' where her ability actually did something. I wonder then how Yuyuko, who is not a newcomer and everyone knows could accumulate this many points...

Well, you concluded your argument in such a good way, I can hardly deny anything! But the rest was good as well of course. True, no matter what I say about Akyuu, the fact that she did come out on top makes her ability good, even if the realization of 'perfect memory' is up to the author to elaborate in the next chapters.

Speaking of Satori, she would be the best counter for Akyuu though. All her hard earned information can be directly taken from her.
Its fascinating how Youmu (and some other characters like Yuyuko) are not part of the large group of tile manipulator or information manipulator (gatherer). If you think back on how Youmu won, it was mostly what you'd consider a fluke. Her hardest oppenent being arguably Sanae was outdone by teamwork as far as I remember. Keine wrecked her hard, Satori won't lose to her twice. The only 'legitimate' win was against the 'strongest trio' where her ability actually did something. I wonder then how Yuyuko, who is not a newcomer and everyone knows could accumulate this many points...

Your comment about Satori vs. Akyuu is probably why Satori is a Sense and Akyuu is not.

She had another legitimate win, in Chapter 7. against Mamizou, Tojiko and Sunny. It also goes over the various ways the author categorises the abilities (though honestly I feel like we need to divide them further to describe the abilities we're actually seeing).

• Boost Type/Buff type, which improves the player's position or weakens others. Stuff like the all the card-draw-improvers I think fall under this category, but so do ones that affect other people's mental state, Like Sannyo's smoke.
• Environment Type, which change the board's state or even the rules of the game. Stuff like Kaguya's spell of eternity or Keine's alternate history rules, maybe Tojiko's ball lightning as well.
• Information Type, which affect what players know and understand. This I feel can be grouped into Gatherers, like Satori and Akyuu, and Deceivers, like Mamizou, Sunny, Nue and Rumia.
• And Defense Type, countering other player's abilities, which is what Youmu's skills play towards. Also cases like Urumi, who prevents people from playing around with their wall by making any tile they're not supposed to be manipulating too heavy to move.

We don't really know where Yuyuko's ability sits. It's the ability to manipulate the dead and spirits, as well as death itself, but... who knows how that translates into Mahjong. Maybe she can force someone to lose when they're weak or down, but the problem with that ability is it requires them to be weak first, Which Satori doesn't get into by herself.

As for Sanae, it did require teamwork, but that's because of the nature of her ability, and Youmu did come up with the strategy to beat her on her own (rack up a bunch of small wins, then smash her with a small wins combo bonus going straight past her trigger to death).

If I had to guess how Youmu's going to get out of this one... Currently, her ability only gives her a defence against some skills, but she's helpless against others. She needs to get other skills to force her way through environment-type abilities like Kaguya. I think she's going to pick up some of Marisa's Sleight of Hand skills. It'd flow with how the episodes have been presented so far:
- Wins in Round 1 (vs. Sanae) with a particular strategy
- Wins in Round 2 (vs. Mamizou et al) with the same strategy, strategy calcifies
- Loses in Round 3 (vs. Keine) when her ability attacks the fundamentals of her strategy, causing her confidence and strategy to shatter
- Loses in Round 4 (vs. Hina), but resolves to grow stronger
- Watches Marisa's sleight of hand trickery and sees how it can help her escape an environment type like Kaguya.

Sleight of Hand might be the only way for her to get around Akyuu's abilities, if it's as good as I think it is. What better way to throw off a card-counter than to change the order of cards without her knowledge? Though, she'd have to be pretty good to get past it if the ability is what I suggested earlier.

There's also the currently not revealed Doremy, who's not said or done anything yet. Considering two people will be moving on, maybe Doremy will team up with Youmu for this round in some way.

Didn't Yuyuko emphasize to Youmu that both their abilities are useless for Majhong? I dont think she was lying.

I would believe Youmu not to 'cheat' against others. I think - referring to the title - that her greatest strength will be to disregard people's abilities and play her own game. E.g. even if Akyuu knows all the tiles, she still wouldn't be able to predict what Youmu cuts, so her greatest strength is rendered useless if for example her winning tile(s) is kept.

And other abilities that would influence even the behaviour, like Kaguya, shouldn't work on Youmu either (not that it matters at this point), since unless Kaguya is good at majhong, which is in question, as her reliance on her ability is very much like Sanae's, she would need to force a draw whilst only having two players (not her) to cooperate.

Btw, what's your occupation, if you don't mind me asking. I have never seen someone use ... et. al in a different context than scientific papers. (one would normally just write and co.)

last edited at Sep 3, 2022 3:10AM

So is Doremy creating Youmu's ideas or eating them?

Ok, so after all this discussion, my initial guess was right. All yokai ability like Kaguya, Shou or Sanae actually change the value of the tiles (and Remilia probably too), but actually knowing them nullyfies that.

Marisas cheating did change the value of tiles she knew, but since those were only a few, and Kaguya could influence (apparently like Doremy) behaviour, the tie ability was almost unbreakable by outside influences.

Akyuu does not only have perfect memory, apparently she also has perfect eyes. Well, at least we can discard the theory that she has perfect reflexes and information analysis...

Oddly enough, between those 2 years, did no one use these tiles? Otherwise theyd sure to have changed marks. Maybe an oversight here.

So is Doremy creating Youmu's ideas or eating them?

Considering youmus last move, Id rather say shes using them (Youmus dream to go on) to power up her own ability, then create a dream like enviroment for youmu so she acts like such (i.e. when youre in a dream, you act not like you do when awake) and thus effectively countering akyuus ability.

Ok, so after all this discussion, my initial guess was right. All yokai ability like Kaguya, Shou or Sanae actually change the value of the tiles (and Remilia probably too), but actually knowing them nullyfies that.

Marisas cheating did change the value of tiles she knew, but since those were only a few, and Kaguya could influence (apparently like Doremy) behaviour, the tie ability was almost unbreakable by outside influences.

Akyuu does not only have perfect memory, apparently she also has perfect eyes. Well, at least we can discard the theory that she has perfect reflexes and information analysis...

Oddly enough, between those 2 years, did no one use these tiles? Otherwise theyd sure to have changed marks. Maybe an oversight here.

We were kinda both right. Shou's ability isn't just affecting the draws she makes or what goes into her wall, it's outright affecting the tiles. On the other hand, Akyuu is able to keep track of literally every piece on the board and formulate her quickest plan to success, so she's even more busted than I thought.

I still think Marisa's was just sleight of hand, because she outright says that's what she's doing - that the techniques she's using are considered cheating in the outside world. While using magic to swap tiles locations would definitely be considered cheating in our world, they also wouldn't be considered in the outside world for the most part.

Presumably, her fixating on the few tiles she wants to move around would mean that those tiles are known, and thus those at least are immune to abilities like Shou's. But that's theoretical.

As for why Akyuu's able to use the tiles after two years, it probably factors into her requiring a couple rounds to get started in using her ability. The markings on the set between now and then would have increased, but not decreased, so she would have seen some that looked very familiar but she couldn't confirm if they were the same set, or a set that had experienced similar or even identical wear and tear. Once she saw enough tiles from the set turned up in certain ways, she can lock in what set she's working with, and from there extrapolate which tiles are which.

Like, imagine seeing a group of five pirates once with eidetic memory. One's got an eyepatch, another's got a pegleg, et cetera. Then, five years later, you meet a familiar group of pirates, but they're way more scarred. When you find out the guy with an eyepatch, a busted-up nose, and a few missing teeth is the old eyepatch pirate, then the guy with two peglegs must be the old pegleg guy, and so on. Of course, this assumes the group's composition doesn't change, but that's not relevant to an example based on Mahjong tiles.

To circle back to an older discussion, cos i think my old post maybe just never got posted, I do think Yuyuko has an ability. I looked back for her saying that she didn't have an ability herself, and it didn't actually happen - she discusses Youmu's lack of an ability in chapter 2, but doesn't mention her own ability or lack thereof at all. I skimmed through the other chapters where she appears, and she either just vaguely promises to compete or is giving Youmu advice about her specifically, such as the Path. This is in contrast to, for example, Marisa, who outright relates to Youmu as a "fellow powerless player" in the one conversation they have together.

Lastly, again this was going to be in the older post that never was, I was thinking about the four groups of powers the author uses, and I wonder if those are meant to correspond to the four leagues and Senses?

• Satori is an information type, and the Sense of Other. naturally, those with information-type abilities are more aware of other people than anyone else on the board.
• Remilia is known to be Environment type, and the Sense of Heaven.
• Tenshi's the sense of earth and completely unknown. Manipulating the Earth, not to mention natural celestial luck makes me think she's a Buff Type, though.
• And then there's sanae, the old Sense of Self, whose ability could be read as buff or defense type, because it buffs her hand reactively when she's in a desperate situation. But if Youmu takes over her seat, she's definitely and explicitly Defense Type, and Defense is the best fit thematically for Self.

though, it's also worth noting they discuss ability types after Sanae's game. So sanae may not fit the mold simply because they hadn't come up with it by the point they were making her ability

Must've misremembered then. I could've sworn yuyuko said 'we' when talking about less suitable abilities. Oh well, lets see if there's going to be some epilogue poetic match between master and student.

(Or Reimu will play?! And show how going beyond reality is the strongest ability XD But no, let's not leave out GOD rinnosuke, who should actually dominate the table by just playing the game like a normal person!)

I can somewhat garner a guess for the other, but I'm utterly blind as to what Doremy's power allow her to do. Then again, I don't think I ever really understand what exactly she did in Touhou 15.

Must've misremembered then. I could've sworn yuyuko said 'we' when talking about less suitable abilities. Oh well, lets see if there's going to be some epilogue poetic match between master and student.

(Or Reimu will play?! And show how going beyond reality is the strongest ability XD But no, let's not leave out GOD rinnosuke, who should actually dominate the table by just playing the game like a normal person!)

I should note that I skipped whole chapters if I didn't remember Yuyuko being in them, so you're welcome to go back and check yourself.

But if Yuyuko scores at least second place in the Other match, she'll be fighting Youmu next round. And I suspect we'll either see her mahjong style then, or we'll see her Other fight first with her in the protag role.

I think Reimu will be a post-tournament fight. Considering her canonical luck in card games is "so good that she just wins easily", I can only imagine what hell it will be fighting her. And it may well be that the story doesn't end at the tournament, there's a lot more characters to explore, and many might just not participate in the tournament for whatever reason (e.g. the Animal Gangs from TH17 and their bosses).

This has already become the longest manga in SCoOW, which is somewhat crazy to think about (especially since it's kind of the weird outlier as "the mahjong manga"). Well, I guess being bizarrely long is also on brand for mahjong manga, though. There's no real rule or precedent for how long SCoOW manga can get (other than whatever was the longest previously - Gensokyo of Humans at 16 chapters), so I guess it comes down to whatever the author and publisher feel like.

Cheating Detective Satori is technically longer-running than this, but with a hiatus in between, and has a couple more chapters, but they're way, way shorter.

last edited at Sep 22, 2022 3:48PM

Okay, this is interesting; it seems like each of the three opponents Youmu has are almost in a rock-paper-scissors formation.
- Shou has a great ability, but Akyuu hard-counters it with perfect memory.
- Akyuu has perfect knowledge of the pieces in the game, but is prone to being manipulated by Doremy.
- And Doremy can influence other player's decisions, but Shou is too strong-willed to be told.

Guess that means the moment Youmu throws a wrench in one of their plans, the game veers in one direction and stops this "stalemate?"

Whats her ability?: perfect memory
Whats her weakness?: mental illness

I misread Youmu's recollection of Doremy's ability as "Her ability is eating doughnut creams."

Shoujo Fractal made a PV for the manga.

I can't believe I reached this far in this manga even though I don't even understand a thing about mahjong.

I can't believe I reached this far in this manga even though I don't even understand a thing about mahjong.

literally me LOL

You know, Akyuu, if you hate youmu so much, you can take this outside of majhong too, but Im not so sure about your chances of winning there XD

btw, compare Akyuu here and akyuu in e.g. mystias izakaya. The difference is night and day

I can't believe I reached this far in this manga even though I don't even understand a thing about mahjong.

literally me LOL

The cliffhanger would be more cliffhangy if I understood what that pon at the end implies!

I can't believe I reached this far in this manga even though I don't even understand a thing about mahjong.

literally me LOL

The cliffhanger would be more cliffhangy if I understood what that pon at the end implies!

Akyuu discarded the 4 man anticipating Youmu's 1-4 wait, but since she called pon on the west wind now she's waiting for the 3 man, which is still in Akyuu's hand. Every single tile in her hand gives somebody else the win, so unless she draws a safe tile she HAS to deal into somebody's hand.

If I had to guess she'll (begrudgingly) deal into Youmu's hand, since while that'll give Youmu the win it'll also keep Akyuu in 2nd. Technically she could deal into Doremy's or Shou's hand and still get 2nd place, but that'd eliminate Youmu which would end the plot prematurely.